I’ve Never Gone Viral. And Maybe That’s the Point.
Why I’ve stopped measuring success by followers and started measuring it by people.
I’ve never gone viral.
Every now and then, I’ll watch another creator gain tens of thousands of followers seemingly overnight. Their videos are everywhere. Their comments explode. Brands line up to work with them.
Then there’s me.
I’ve been sharing my hair loss journey for just over two years. and building Hair Loss Pride for the last 18 months.
Most days, I’m quietly writing another post, filming another video, recording another podcast episode, answering another email, or sitting across from another woman in a wig consultation, hoping that something I create reaches the person who needs it most.
I’ll be honest: there are days I wonder if what I’m doing is making any difference at all.
Comparison is sneaky. It doesn’t matter how much work you’ve done on yourself. It still whispers.
“Maybe you’re not growing fast enough.”
“Maybe you’re doing something wrong.”
“Maybe people just aren’t interested.”
When you spend hours creating content, writing newsletters, recording podcasts, responding to comments, and trying to build a business from scratch, it’s easy to start measuring your worth by numbers on a screen.
Followers. Views. Likes. Shares. Growth.
I’ve caught myself doing it more than once.
Then something always happens that reminds me why I started.
A woman sends me a message saying she finally booked a wig consultation because she’d been watching my videos for months.
Someone tells me they wore their wig to work for the first time because they felt brave enough after following Hair Loss Pride.
Another woman says she took her wig off in front of her husband for the first time in years.
Someone joins one of our Vancouver meetups and says it’s the first time she’s ever met another woman with hair loss.
Those moments don’t show up in analytics. They don’t go viral, but they’re changing someone’s life.
Honestly, that’s what I wanted all along.
Hair Loss Pride was never about building an audience.
It was about building a community.
When I started this business, I wasn’t chasing followers. I was trying to create the support system I desperately needed when I was 15 years old and convinced I was the only girl losing her hair.
I wanted women to stop hiding.
To stop believing they were somehow less beautiful, less feminine, or less worthy because of something they never chose.
Since then, the mission has grown in ways I never could have predicted.
Today, Hair Loss Pride isn’t just Instagram posts.
It’s coaching women through one of the hardest seasons of their lives.
It’s helping someone find a wig they actually feel like themselves in.
It’s gathering women around a dinner table in Vancouver who had never before met another person with hair loss.
It’s speaking to salons about how to better support clients with alopecia.
It’s partnering with beauty and fashion brands to increase representation for women with hair loss.
It’s hosting honest conversations through Shedding the Shame, where women tell the stories they’ve been carrying quietly for years.
Every one of those opportunities started because I kept showing up online.
Not because a post went viral; because I kept pressing “publish.”
Maybe slow growth isn’t a bad thing.
I’ve started thinking about growth differently.
Slow growth means I’ve had time to build real relationships. It means I know many of the women in this community by name.
I’ve celebrated pregnancies after infertility.
Supported women through diagnoses.
Helped them buy their first wig.
Cheered them on as they took their wigs off in public for the first time.
Those aren’t transactions; they’re relationships, and that’s the kind of community I want to build.
Would a million followers be exciting?
Of course.
But if I had to choose between one viral video and one woman deciding she’s worthy of being seen because of something I shared...
I’d choose the woman. Every single time.
Maybe success looks different than we think.
We’re constantly told to think bigger.
Grow faster. Scale. Go viral.
But maybe success isn’t always loud.
Maybe it’s the quiet message you receive from someone who’s been watching for months.
Maybe it’s the woman who finally feels understood.
Maybe it’s helping someone stop hiding.
Maybe it’s simply knowing that your work mattered to one person today.
If that’s the kind of impact I’m creating, then I think I’m doing just fine.
Thank you for being here, whether you’ve followed Hair Loss Pride from the beginning or just found this community recently.
You’re the reason I keep showing up.
And if something I’ve shared has ever made you feel seen, understood, or a little less alone, I’d love for you to share Hair Loss Pride with another woman who might need it.
Communities like this don’t grow because something goes viral. They grow because one woman tells another, “I think this might help you.”
That’s how we’ve gotten here, and I have a feeling that’s exactly how we’ll keep growing.
